Burnout has been reported across numerous healthcare settings and disciplines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among US hospital infection preventionists surveyed in this study, nearly half reported feeling burnt out, but strong leadership support was associated with lower rates of burnout. Leadership support was also associated with psychological safety and a stronger safety climate.

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged infection prevention and control practices. Findings from this survey of infection prevention professionals from acute care hospitals in the United States found that while CLABSI and VAE preventive practices either increased or remained consistent, use of CAUTI preventive practices decreased during the pandemic.

Implementing successful interventions to support effective medication reconciliation is an ongoing challenge. The MARQUIS2 study examined whether system- and patient-level interventions plus physician mentors can improve medication reconciliation and reduce medication discrepancies. This analysis based on patient exposure in the MARQUIS2 study found that patient receipt of a best possible medication history (BPMH) in the emergency department and medication reconciliation at admission and discharge were associated with the largest reductions in medication discrepancy rates.

Medication reconciliation aims to prevent adverse events during transitions of care, but implementing effective interventions supporting medication reconciliation has proven challenging. Building upon lessons learned in the MARQUIS1 study, this pragmatic quality improvement study (MARQUIS2) implemented a refined toolkit including system-level and patient-level interventions as well as physician mentors providing remote coaching and in-person site visits. Across 17 hospital sites, the intervention was associated with a significant decrease in unintentional mediation discrepancies over time.

Peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC) represent a key source of preventable harm. Using the Michigan Appropriateness Guide for Intravenous Catheters (MAGIC), the authors sought to determine if the appropriateness of PICC use decreased related medical complications including catheter occlusion, venous thromboembolism, and central line-associated bloodstream infections. Use of MAGIC in 52 Michigan hospitals increased appropriate use of PICC lines and decreased medical complications. In a 2019 PSNet Perspective, Dr. Vineet Chopra described the development and implementation of MAGIC in Michigan hospitals.  

Teamwork is essential to providing high quality, safe healthcare. This survey of general medicine nurses, nurse assistants, and physicians at four hospitals identified significant differences in perceptions of teamwork climate and collaboration across professional categories. While a majority of physicians reported the quality of collaboration with nurses as high, less than half of nurses gave high ratings to the quality of collaboration with physicians. Future teamwork training efforts should target the discrepancy in perceived teamwork across professional categories.

This article describes the use of a case-based simulation to explore how physicians reason, create differential diagnoses, and ultimately achieve a correct diagnosis. Participating physicians who achieved the correct diagnosis (herpes zoster) utilized systems-based or anatomic approaches, rather than focuses on life-threatening diagnoses alone, and employed debiasing strategies.

… failing to consider opportunity costs).   … Meddings J, Saint S, Lilford R, et al. Targeting zero harm: a stretch …

This cross-sectional study reports the results of an ongoing national survey of infection preventionists to assess hospital infection control program characteristics and organizational practices to prevent common healthcare-associated infections. One-third of responding hospitals reported characteristics of organizational safety culture (e.g. employee perceptions of feeling safe to speak up, ask for help, or provide feedback), which was associated with increased odds of using some recommended practices for preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Prior research has found that diagnostic errors comprise approximately one-fifth of preventable errors among hospitalized patients. Academic clinical care poses unique risks for diagnostic error because the frontline providers are residents and medical students. Thus, accurate diagnosis relies on robust communication between learners and their supervisors. A team of social scientists and clinicians conducted an ethnographic study of physicians on academic inpatient rounds to identify barriers to timely and correct diagnoses. They found that reliance on one-way communication methods and insufficient face-to-face interactions with patients and consultants hindered effective diagnostic decision-making. Additionally, the electronic health record led to data overload and data fragmentation. The authors offer concrete suggestions for more clinician- and patient-centered technical tools. A WebM&M commentary discussed a diagnostic error involving learners in psychiatry.

This study focused on three types of device-associated infections: catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), central line–associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI), and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Investigators surveyed hospital infection control leaders at 528 hospitals about prevention practices for each of these infections. More than 90% of respondents had established surveillance for CAUTI rates throughout their facilities, nearly 100% used two key CLABSI prevention techniques as part of their insertion protocol, and 98% used semirecumbent positioning to prevent VAP. Gaps remain in use of antimicrobial devices across all three of these infection types. The authors conclude that, although implementation of evidence-based infection practices are improving over time, some gaps in device-associated infection prevention persist. A past PSNet perspective discussed the history around efforts to address preventable hospital-acquired infections.

This direct observation study of hospitalist teams on rounds and conducting follow-up work examined the interaction between systems problems and cognitive errors in diagnosis. Researchers found that information gaps related to electronic health records, challenges with handoffs, and time constraints all contributed to difficulties in diagnostic cognition. The authors suggest considering both systems and cognitive challenges to diagnosis in order to promote safety.

The literature on effective approaches to improving quality and safety generally focuses on high reliability organizations and positive deviants—organizations or units that have achieved notable successes. This systematic review sought to characterize organizations that struggle to improve quality. The authors identified five domains that exemplify struggling organizations, including lack of a clear mission and organizational structure for improving quality and inadequate infrastructure.

This ethnographic study examined the process of making a diagnosis among academic inpatient medical teams. Investigators observed that diagnosis requires dialogue within team, needed data is often not available, and distractions and time pressure are frequent. These observations may inform future interventions to improve timeliness and accuracy of diagnosis.

Characterization of diagnostic error in the hospital setting has traditionally relied on data from autopsy studies, but the continuing decline in autopsy rates necessitates identification of diagnostic errors through other data sources. In this study, investigators utilized the National Practitioner Data Bank to examine the incidence and severity of inpatient diagnostic error and estimate the clinical and economic consequences of these errors. Diagnostic error accounted for 22% of paid malpractice claims over a 12-year period, resulting in $5.7 billion in payments, and the incidence of claims due to failure to diagnose increased over time. Paid claims due to diagnostic error were more likely to be for male patients older than 50, compared with other types of paid claims. Consistent with other studies, a small proportion (9%) of physicians accounted for a large proportion (51%) of payments. Although paid malpractice claims data have important limitations, this study advances our understanding of the epidemiology of diagnostic error among hospitalized patients and insights into possible preventive mechanisms.

Previous studies have investigated the benefits of unit-based interventions as a potential safety strategy. This survey study sought to examine implementation of several unit-based initiatives to improve care quality in inpatient settings: localization of physicians to specific designated units, nurse–physician joint leadership, periodic review of local performance data, and interdisciplinary rounds. Investigators invited residency program directors and hospital medicine leaders to participate in the study. The response rate was low and thus the findings may not reflect academic hospitals in general. Overall, among respondents' institutions, the interventions were not widely or consistently implemented. These findings underscore the challenge of translating interventions shown to be effective for enhancing safety in research settings into clinical practice.

Fragmented care transitions may lead to adverse events due to poor provider communication, disjointed continuation of care, and incomplete patient follow-up. In this study, site visits were conducted at 22 healthcare organization across the United State to determine facilitators and barriers to implementing transitional care services. Identified facilitators included collaborating within and beyond the organization, tailoring care to patients and caregivers, and generating buy-in among staff. Barriers included poor integration of transitional care services, unmet patient or caregiver needs, underutilized services, and lack of physician buy-in. Results suggest how institutions may wish to prioritize strategies to facility effective care transitions.

This retrospective cohort study demonstrated that a readmission risk score could prospectively identify patients at risk for readmissions for the four target conditions for nonpayment: acute myocardial infarction, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, and heart failure. These results suggest that this algorithm can identify a high-risk patient group who may benefit from interventions to prevent readmission.